Air pollution causes one out of eight of all deaths around the world. That’s 7 million people every year. Lung cancer, heart disease, chronic bronchitis, asthma… All of these diseases are the result of our poor air quality. So what’s causing all this pollution? One simple thing: coal. The coal we burn to power our […]
Article by Mike Lawrence From domestic housing to the Science Museum, plant-based construction materials cut reliance on scarce resources and build healthy, efficient and zero carbon buildings How can buildings help with climate change? It’s all about renewables and “sequestered carbon”. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ 2010 report on Low Carbon Construction concluded that construction […]
Article by He Quandong China’s next five-year plan must turn the country’s urbanization ambitions into concrete, implementable measures, says the Energy Foundation’s He Dongquan Better public transport is likely to be a priority in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (Image by Yuxuan Wang shows Beijing’s central business district) As China’s policymakers mull the contents of the country’s next Five-Year […]
Over the past decade, fleets of shipping containers have left the shipyard and have been popping up on dry land as an eco-friendly—and economical—method of surprisingly elegant design. We’ve rounded up nine recent projects that take the humble boxes to new heights. 1. Firm: NL Architects Project: Barneveld Noord Bus Station, Netherlands Standout: The Dutch firm used four […]
Masdar City, near Abu Dhabi, boasts green buildings, a fleet of electric cars and massive solar arrays. But will the experiment work? The oil-rich Emirate of Abu Dhabi is well aware that someday the crude will stop flowing. What then? In a rather epic attempt to get ahead of their own future, the powers that […]